...non-player character (NPC) that incorporates the ELIZA program (or, better yet, one of its descendants) to converse with human players. [Like the artificial intelligence (AI) challenge above (Game AI [female game]), this challenge MIGHT also spur on the development of strong (sentient) AI.] The ELIZA NPC for this challenge must be located alone on a mountain top in the game and resembles a fat, jolly Buddha. [Due to the reflective conversational nature of the ELIZA program, talking to it would almost be like talking to a spiritual guru who answers your questions with questions.]

To win this challenge (and Future Challenges #1 through #6), the MMORPG program must include a learning algorithm, must transmit at least once per operational day what it has learned to the company that developed the program, and download updates from that central server.

1) Is installed in an office in a town/city in the game where the office looks like a psychotherapist room and the therapist looks like a bearded cigar-smoking Sigmund Freud. [The ELIZA program’s reflective conversational nature is like the style of psychotherapy done by Dr. Freud.] Each psychotherapist room must be individually generated so each human player’s character is the only character that can enter the room to give the human player privacy in conversing with the ELIZA NPC. Entering the room removes all weapons and armor from the character’s avatar and replaces them with what appears to be comfortable clothing. Clicking on the patient's couch makes the player’s character lie down on it. This room and the NPC are completely maintained on the player’s computer without anything needed from the game’s network. No information revealed in these sessions is sent to the game’s network.

2) Gives all of its in-character information in a free-flowing conversation mode to human players. [For example, human players in a high fantasy MMORPG (such as World of Warcraft) would be able to go and talk to a computer character that is the village blacksmith and the blacksmith converses with the human player and gives them all the information and quests that character is to give out.]

3) Can harvest key information from conversations with human players about the human player and the player’s character(s). The game AI stores that information in a secure file on the player’s computer, doesn’t share the information with the game’s network, and later uses that information appropriately in private conversations with the human player and the player’s character(s).

4) Can carry on a wide-ranging conversation about numerous topics appropriate for the game and for that character but in such a way as to be entertaining and to make players question whether they are really talking to a game AI or to a human pretending to be the game AI and never “breaking character.”

5) Can be asked to join the player’s group and act like a human player in that it can play the character playing the game and discuss non-game topics. The program accesses out-of-game information resources like Google News, Britannica Online Encyclopedia, CIA World Factbook, etc. to help it converse with human players.

6) Successfully fooling human players into thinking it is a human player seeking a group to join or seeking players to join its group and then plays with them for three hours without them realizing it is a game AI. Percentage fooled:

10%

25%

50%

75%

90%

100%

Discussion:
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